The World Bank has announced that over 148 million Nigerians will be empowered with digital Identity so as to reduce the level of poverty in the country.

The Bank’s Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri announced this at a meeting in Abuja.

He said the move will help improve lives, and create job opportunities for youths while leveraging digital technologies to drive transformation.

Chaudhuri revealed that the registration process will be done through a partnership with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

“Our main mission here in Nigeria is to eliminate poverty, make lives better, create jobs for all Nigerian youth.

“One of the areas that we think have the greatest potential is the area of using digital technologies to transform.

“And to do that, it begins with having this digital national ID. So, one of the main partnerships we have is working with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure the rollout of the registration so that all 220 million Nigerians have a digital national ID.

“This will begin of course with all people of working age and I think the target for that is at least 148 million people by the middle of next year,” he said.

Chandiri also said the bank will assist Nigeria in leading the broadband infrastructure for broadband connectivity because without broadband connectivity, digital technologies will lead to a digital divide.

Reacting to the new development, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani said the government has approved half a billion dollars to fund a local program, that will boost entrepreneurship in the digital sector.

He said, “So we’ve got access to about half a billion dollars to start local funding.”

The minister also added that the beneficiaries of the funding would be Nigerians.